page_title: Sforza Hours
section_title: 1490–1504
hierarchical_section_title: Sforza Hours / History / 1490–1504
context_page_description: The Sforza Hours, is a richly illuminated book of hours initiated by Bona Sforza, widow of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, around 1490, who commissioned the illuminator Giovanni Pietro Birago. The book remained in an unfinished state for 30 years until Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, commissioned its completion in 1517–20 from the artist Gerard Horenbout. The book therefore contains decoration of the highest quality by two artists. It provides a unique example of an early sixteenth-century Northern Renaissance illuminator's response to Milanese art of the late Quattrocento. The history of the Sforza Hours also includes one of the earliest recorded examples of art theft.
context_section_description: Bona commissioned the Book of Hours around 1490, fourteen years after the assassination of her husband Galeazzo Sforza. Completion of the book was probably abandoned in 1494 when Bona found herself excluded from power by her brother-in-law, Ludovico Sforza, following the death of her son Gian Galeazzo. She returned to her native Savoy in 1495 as a guest of her nephew Philibert of Savoy. Bona died in 1503 and Philibert also died the following year, whereupon the book became the property of his widow, Margaret of Austria.
caption: Portrait of Margaret of Austria by Bernard van Orley
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